Sandy MaloneWashington, DC – The mayor of the nation’s capital said the city has hit a tipping point and needs the federal government to step in and deal with the “humanitarian crisis” of thousands of illegal immigrants arriving by the busload daily from Texas and Arizona.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced in April that his state would start sending the migrants who entered the United States illegally across its border to “sanctuary cities” like the nation’s capital so that liberal Democrats who supported allowing them to stay in the country could deal with them, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
“Thanks to the State of Texas, President Biden will be able to immediately meet the needs of migrants he is allowing to cross our border by busing them to his backyard,” Abbott said in a statement that was released after 10 buses full of illegal immigrants were unloaded in the District of Columbia.
“The Biden Administration’s failed efforts to secure the border are appalling,” the Texas governor continued. “By busing migrants to Washington, D.C., Texas is sending a clear message: we should not have to bear the burden of the federal government’s inaction to secure the border, and the Lone Star State will do whatever it takes to keep Texans safe.”
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has championed accepting migrants into the United States when they enter the country illegally, wasn’t expecting those thousands of illegal immigrants to be sent to her city.
After more than three months of buses arriving near Union Station on Capitol Hill, Bowser wants the federal government to intervene, WRC reported.
More than 4,000 illegal immigrants have been unloaded from buses in DC so far and Bowser has asked for help from the DC National Guard to manage them.
“The migrant crisis facing our city and our country through cruel political gamesmanship from the Governors of Texas and Arizona must be dealt with at the federal level,” Bowser wrote in a letter to the White House on July 22.
She also sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin on July 19 asking for help, WRC reported.
But so far, Bowser hasn’t gotten approval to use the guardsman despite her pleas.
9 days since @MayorBowser requested @SecDef @ @POTUS activate @DCNationalGuard DC has received no answer. @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/Ndwvh7MoMh
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) July 28, 2022
In states, governors have the authority to bring it National Guard troops, but the mayor of DC must have permission from the federal government in order to activate the guard, WRC reported.
Bowser has asked that the DC Armory be used to process and temporarily house the thousands of arriving migrants.
The mayor said DC cannot afford to pick up the tab for the “humanitarian crisis” she blamed on the governors of Texas and Arizona and said the nation’s capital city has already paid out more than $1 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants to non-governmental agencies (NGO) to help the arriving illegals, WRC reported.
The problem also appeared to be growing well beyond what was obvious to those who saw the migrants arriving by the busload.
On Wednesday, immigration agents found 73 recently-arrived migrants – including children – living in six different “stash houses” in upper Northwest DC, WRC reported.
Authorities also found $95,000 in cash and a stash of cocaine in those houses.
Pro-immigration activists who have been on site to welcome the busloads from Texas and Arizona said that nobody from the mayor’s office has been out there helping them, the DCist reported.
“We don’t see anybody from Mayor Bowser’s office here,” Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network volunteer Isaias Guerrero explained. “We don’t see anybody from the Office of Latino Affairs here to say ‘Welcome, how can we support you’ even if it’s with like waters.”
“People just want to wash their hands because this is seen as a hot potato. But what it should be seen as is an opportunity for us to actually create a model of being welcoming,” Guerrero told the DCist.
But migrants who were sent to the nation’s capital instead of staying near the border said the rumors that they would be treated better in DC were true.
Illegal immigrants Ruth and Ronald told the DCist that they and their four children were welcomed by local volunteers when they got off the bus in DC.
The volunteers fed them, bought them flights to relatives in Florida, and let their family spend the night in one of their homes before they left for their final destination – a much better experience than what they had in Texas.
“It was tougher because in the border there are military, so they treat you like military,” Ronald told the DCist.
“I was a little down,” the new arrival in the country said in Spanish. “But once we got here, the way they treated us here, I felt good.”
“If we didn’t have her family, I told her that we would stay here. We would stay in Washington. I felt a good vibe here,” the father told the DCist.
Holly Matkin
